Union sues IMF

[Patrick Bond]

I was with those comrades in Taegu last Friday, when they made the 
announcement. Although at first blush it appears a legalistic 
distraction from the class struggle that is still playing out in 
very forceful ways in Korea, the particular context was an extremely 
interesting, still-nascent, anti-IMF alliance of petit-bourgeois 
nationalists (harking back to a "national debt redemption movement" 
based on a 1907 anti-Japanese IMF-type squeeze on living standards), 
plus the old National-Liberation (pro-N.Korean) student movement, 
plus a few of the People's Democracy class-struggle militants. The 
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions showed up to make inputs into 
the conference and support the bank workers, and although the new 
leadership is somewhat more predisposed to corporatist deal-making, 
the overall feeling I got was that enough radicals remain in key 
union positions that this anti-IMF sentiment will grow ever stronger. 
But it will be crucial for the KCTU to ensure the anti-IMF sentiment 
continues to mature, and that it can soon be turned against Kim Dae 
Jung's neoliberal government. A new workers' party is forming to that 
end. A very exciting place!


> Date:          Fri, 15 Oct 1999 14:38:55 -0800
> From:          Marta Russell <ap888 at lafn.org>
> Organization:  lafn.org
> To:            lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject:       Union sues IMF
> Reply-to:      lbo-talk at lists.panix.com


> This may be of interest:
> 
> Union Sues IMF On Behalf Of Fired
> Workers
> Fox News
> 
> A South Korean banking union said on
> Friday it was suing the
> International Monetary Fund for $398,000
> in damages on behalf of workers
> fired during an IMF-led restructuring of
> the financial industry. It was
> thought to be the first suit against the
> IMF from a country it has given
> aid to.
> 
> http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/etcetera/wires/1015/e_rt_
> 
> --
> Marta Russell